I would like to give another example here. We see plenty of examples of people being killed in accidents. Many a time, the fault lies with the other person. The other person is drunk or he falls asleep while driving and as a result, he rams into someone else car. That someone else gets killed for no fault of his. Where is the logic here? Nevertheless, this is reality even though illogical.

Look around yourself and you'll find people with virtues are never required to demand respect since they automatically earn it. It is only those that are devoid of any virtues need to threaten and bully to gain respect. Needless to say that quran cannot be from God.

skynightblaze wrote:I would like to give another example here. We see plenty of examples of people being killed in accidents. Many a time, the fault lies with the other person. The other person is drunk or he falls asleep while driving and as a result, he rams into someone else car. That someone else gets killed for no fault of his. Where is the logic here? Nevertheless, this is reality even though illogical.

Hi, I am not sure what you are telling us here. Obviously if someone gets behind the wheel of a car drunk he is responsible for the consequences. If i make myself deliberately unable to function properly, how can that be an excuse?

The immoral act started by getting drunk and not ensuring that a sober person takes you home.

skynightblaze wrote:I would like to give another example here. We see plenty of examples of people being killed in accidents. Many a time, the fault lies with the other person. The other person is drunk or he falls asleep while driving and as a result, he rams into someone else car. That someone else gets killed for no fault of his. Where is the logic here? Nevertheless, this is reality even though illogical.

Hi, I am not sure what you are telling us here. Obviously if someone gets behind the wheel of a car drunk he is responsible for the consequences. If i make myself deliberately unable to function properly, how can that be an excuse?

The immoral act started by getting drunk and not ensuring that a sober person takes you home.

You are misunderstanding me. I am talking about the person who suffers because of me and not myself. Let us say I drink and drive and because of my actions someone else gets killed. What's the fault of the person being killed? There is no logic which can explain why he deserved to die. Isn't this illogical? Nevertheless it happens frequently and its the reality.

Look around yourself and you'll find people with virtues are never required to demand respect since they automatically earn it. It is only those that are devoid of any virtues need to threaten and bully to gain respect. Needless to say that quran cannot be from God.

Actually I was out of town on business. But better late then never I always say.

skynightblaze wrote:When I said something should stand on its own feet, I meant that it should stand on basis of logic alone. You don't need any other yardstick such as God or else the statement is simply not objective.

Now I have a question. If you agree that point of reference has to depend on logic and not on metaphysical references then why did you agree with Manfred’s analysis of what Craig meant to say?

You misunderstand. I did not say that morality is grounded in the laws of logic. I used the laws of logic as an analogy. The point I'm making here is that the laws of logic are independent of our beliefs. We apprehend something outside of our beliefs by which we formulate logical judgments.

P1) All men are mortal

P2) Aristotle is a man

Therefore, Aristotle is mortal

The conclusion Aristotle is mortal is not informed by my beliefs, rather the conclusion follows out logical necessity from the premises. I intuitively recognize the relationship between the two premises which allows me to infer the conclusion.

In exactly the same way, moral laws are independent of our beliefs. We apprehend something outside of our beliefs by which we formulate moral judgments.

The image below shows a group of Mohammedans throwing a man off a building to his death for engaging in homosexual behavior. The wrongness of this act is not informed by my beliefs, rather the act is wrong in and of itself. I immediately-directly recognize the relationship between the act and wrongness.

Now, look at the image. According to your view of morality, throwing a man off a building for being gay is not objectively wrong. There is no rational basis for you to condemn that act.

skynightblaze wrote:Well then the next question for Craig is- How does he know whatever is said in the bible is objective? God says so or bible says so is circular reasoning and hence not acceptable. There must be a mechanism for us to determine if bible is objective or not or else bible can be dismissed.

Again, this is a red herring. The argument for objective morality is not predicated on the Bible or any other religious theology. Sam Harris believes morality is objective and I can assure you that he doesn't rely on the Bible to make his case. That being said, there certainly is a mechanism to determine the reliability of the Bible. It's called historical scholarship. The Gospel, like any other historical document, is subject to painstaking methods of investigation to determine it's authenticity. No other religion has been subject to the intense level of scrutiny as Christianity. So the mechanism is the same rigoruos standard of scholarship as any other historical primary source document.

skynightblaze wrote:This is not making any sense and I don’t think I am misunderstanding Craig’s argument. Craig clearly says objective morality does not exist without God. I think you are trying to say that recognizing moral values becomes tough because you have no standard to measure against if we don’t have God. However, that is not what Craig says. He denies their existence altogether. Anyway, the point here I want to make was – God is not a proven concept and hence the reference point selected itself begs the question of proof. So how can an argument be correct if its based on an unproven concept?

Again, the argument does not rely on the existence of God. In fact, the moral argument is an argument for the existence of God. Did you even watch the debate? The argument is NOT - God exists, therefore morality is objective.

P1. If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.

P2. Objective moral values and duties do exist.

C. Therefore, God exists.

Craig and Harris are debating over Premise 1. They agree on Premise 2.

William Lane Craig wrote:The question before us this evening, then, is, “what is the best foundation for the existence of objective moral values and duties? What grounds them? What makes certain actions objectively good or evil, right or wrong?” In tonight’s debate I’m going to defend two basic contentions:

1. If God exists, then we have a sound foundation for objective moral values and duties.

2. If God does not exist, then we do not have a sound foundation for objective moral values and duties.

Now notice that these are conditional claims. I shall not be arguing tonight that God exists. Maybe Dr. Harris is right that atheism is true. That wouldn’t affect the truth of my two contentions. All that would follow is that objective moral values and duties would, then, contrary to Dr. Harris, not exist.

skynightblaze wrote:Cognitive dissonance is a real phenomenon. We know something is wrong and yet we end up doing exactly the same. Is our behaviour logical especially when we know we are doing something wrong? Ofcourse not! Cognitive dissonance is a classic case of our illogical behaviour but its for real as empirical evidence shows.

Yes, cognitive dissonance is a real phenomenon. However, the idea that empirical observation can falsify the laws of logic is patently absurd. Cognitive dissonance is not an example of empirical observation falsifying the laws of logic, it's just a condition in which one espouses two or more contradicting beliefs about reality. The psychological distress one feels by espousing contradicting beliefs is called cognitive dissonance.

I recently debated a friend over abortion. She believed that 1) the unborn child is a person with human rights while at the same time she believed that 2) women had the right to abort the unborn child. I immediately recognized the brazen contradiction between the two beliefs and pointed it out to her.

Visibly agitated, she blurted out "you're not a woman, you will never understand!".

Her aggressive posture and irrational outburst is a text book case of cognitive dissonance. The laws of logic are not falsified by the fact that she espouses two contradicting beliefs, to the contrary, her beliefs are falsified by the laws of logic.

skynightblaze wrote:Lets consider another example- Majority of men if given a choice between a attractive girl and bad looking chick would pick the good looking girl as a mate or life partner. The reality here is – its illogical to decide about your life partner solely basis of looks. The bad looking may be a gold mine and the good looking girl might be a bitch! So, are the actions of men logical? Ofcourse not! By evolution men are hardwired to go for visual beauty. This means men take the illogical decisions but at the same time, it’s the reality. We cannot deny reality just because it appears illogical.

Forget about your abstruse example above, let's use you as a case study for cognitive dissonance.

You believe that 1) morality is subjective while at the same time you believe 2) humans have objective moral worth. This violates the law of non-contradiction. If one of those beliefs are true, the other must be false. Contradictions are maximal proofs for falsification. You espouse both beliefs on pain of irrationality.

skynightblaze wrote:Assume a person tells you that you believe in democracy just because you were born in a democratic country. Craig accuses such a person of genetic fallacy because being born into democratic nation (past or history) does not necessarily imply that democracy is wrong (present belief). He asks what if democracy is really right? That’s a fair point but an equally fair question is – What if democracy is really wrong and you believe in it just because you were born into it? So both the possibilities have an equal chance. Craig conveniently ignores the second possibility and accuses the opponents of genetic fallacy. Its quite possible that the past or history directly affects your present views.

A logical fallacy is a defect in ones reasoning. The genetic fallacy is committed when one concludes that a belief is false by showing how the belief originated. Even if my beliefs came from a fortune cookie, it doesn't follow that my beliefs are false. Consider the following argument.

You are an atheist because you were born and raised in a secular-relativistic culture, therefore atheism is false and a product of your upbringing.

This argument commits the genetic fallacy, making it a bad argument. The argument is invalid regardless of whether or not atheism is true. So I can't use this argument against atheism because it commits the genetic fallacy and therefore invalid. Criag simply points out that the exact same argument against religion commits the genetic fallacy and is therefore invalid. Craig conveniently ignores nothing, the argument is dead on arrival. The man is an impeccable logician and a sincere thinker.

This, by the way, is irrelevant to the topic.

skynightblaze wrote:I don’t agree with the conclusion of yours ( see below) however even if we go with your reasoning there is still a problem. If the conclusion from premise 1 can swing anyway i.e. human moral worth can be objective or subjective then it opens a worm of cans. You are contradicting yourself in that case because you were sure earlier that humans have moral worth and its objective and now you are admitting that its possible that it can be subjective.

The argument for objective morality is not predicated on premise 1. You're the one drawing conclusions from premise 1. All I'm showing here is that premise 1 doesn't tell us anything. There are arguments for objective morality, however they don't include premise 1. Again, neither Craig nor Harris have argued for objective morality because they both agree that morality is objective. They are not going to dispute something they both agree on. You are disputing the validity of objective morality, not Sam Harris.

skynightblaze wrote:Anyway, I will make a case for it being subjective. When you say that a statement can be possibly objective, you should be able to prove that there exists at least a chance even if slim for it to be objective. I on the other hand, can show that there is no chance of it being objective. Here is how..We all believe that killing is bad(at least majority of human race). We cry foul if a terrorists blows up a plane. We see condemnations pouring from all parts of the world. We are killing millions of animals daily. How many people condemn this? How many of us raise voices ? Infact we see people saying its how nature works and giving all sorts of justifications . So we have a different view when it comes to animals and we think of all human rights in the world when our own ass is on the stove. How can there be a chance of this view being objective when we can maintain 2 different standards?

Its obvious our views are subjective but at the same time, we all believe in objective moral values. Therefore there is a contradiction in our views which I think I cannot resolve. I will attribute it to evolution.

Dude, really? You're just repackaging the same argument that I previously refuted.

This is your argument for subjective morality.

P1) We value human life above the lives of animals

Conclusion: Therefore morality is subjective

This is an obvious non-sequitur. Your argument does not even contain a second premise to make it valid. There is no connector between the premise and the conclusion. There is nothing in premise 1 that remotely suggests that human life has no objective moral worth.

]P1) We value human life and the life of animals equally

Conclusion: Therefore morality is objective

Consider the argument above. If premise 1 were true, would you think this a good argument for objective morality? no, its frigging retarded and its the exact inverse of your argument. In fact, if we lived in a world in which we held animal life equal to human life, humans would be wicked beings.

Imagine drowning in a lake and next to you is a drowning cow. Now imagine the Coast Guard comes along and is only able to save one life. Well, they decide to save the cow because the cows life has equal worth, and you got the bad end of eeny, meeny, miny, moe. Oh, just imagine the collective outrage of the people watching the news. HEADLINE: Coast Guard saves cow, allows man to drown!

Wait, according to you this is evidence of objective morality. The Coast Guard made the right decision.

Believing Jews seem to believe that they are better than the polytheists as they believe only in one reincarnation and one God.Believing Christians seem to believe that they are still better as they also are much more God-fearing due to the additional presence of the concept of One everlasting hell fire and One everlasting Heaven.Muslims believe that the additional concept of One God makes them much more pious than Christians.So leaving aside animals,do you believe in valuation of human lives of human beings of different religious denominations equally?

If special status could be granted to many states in India based on backwardness, then it can also be granted to remnant A. P which was deliberately rendered backward due to malicious policy of divide and rule.After division,percapita income of Telangana is Rs 20,000 /-more than that of remnant A.P.

Nosuperstition you are completely and deliberately misquoting equestrian. He did not say that as a statement of fact as you suggest but as part of an argument.

Then you just go on your soup box again about religions, also misrepresenting what they actually teach as usual.

The whole post then ends is a question which is grammatically so confused that it is difficult to make out what it says.

First: a "denomination" is a branch of a particular religion, such as the Catholics, the orthodox, the Lutherans or the Baptists are all branches of Christianity. They are in agreement on many things, some on pretty much all things except one or two issues.

Judaism, Christianity and Islam are not denominations as there is no over-arching religion they all belong to. You may think this must be "monotheism" but there is no religion with that name, that is simply a term to describe any and all religions that subscribe to the concept of a single deity, not a religion in its own right.

Jews do not believe in any reincarnation. Christians believe in an INCARNATION, which is very much different from a "reincarnation".

Neither Jews nor Christians believe they are somehow a superior class of humans as you suggest. Muslims, perhaps. And being "pious" is a term used to describe INDIVIDUALS and their personal devotion to religious prayer and conduct.

Next, for a Christian, religion is mostly defined by love, not fear. If you ask Muslims, there you do find fear.

Furthermore all three of the religions you mention proclaim a single deity. However, the one proclaimed by Islam is very different from the one proclaimed by the other two.

Do the three religions value human life the same way?

No.

Judaism and Christianity are pretty much on the same page on that question, and their teachings of that concept forms the basis also of much secular law today.

Islam is different. The value of human life in Islam is determined by gender, religion and skin colour, with a white male Muslim at the top of the list, and a brown Hindu woman at the bottom.

Neither Jews nor Christians believe they are somehow a superior class of humans as you suggest. Muslims, perhaps. And being "pious" is a term used to describe INDIVIDUALS and their personal devotion to religious prayer and conduct.

Next, for a Christian, religion is mostly defined by love, not fear. If you ask Muslims, there you do find fear.

Yes today when secularised,they do not seem to believe in superiority by religion.However historically , the word 'heathen' had been used contemptuosly and just like muslims,Christians too had their own version of interpreting certain verses as applicable only to the 'other' while taking better care of their 'own'.The concepts of 'children of God' and 'Children of Satan' are a direct result of those verses.If Christians and Jews as of today got moderated due to secularism,perhaps Islam too can be moderated if secularism is ushered in along with prosperity through industrialisation.

If special status could be granted to many states in India based on backwardness, then it can also be granted to remnant A. P which was deliberately rendered backward due to malicious policy of divide and rule.After division,percapita income of Telangana is Rs 20,000 /-more than that of remnant A.P.

Islam is different. The value of human life in Islam is determined by gender, religion and skin colour, with a white male Muslim at the top of the list, and a brown Hindu woman at the bottom.

Yeah that indeed seems to be true going by what a fellow named 'TheMadTurk' said in the old forum.He said that we muslims gave the conquered 'Whites' the best education possible in our world.Perhaps they did this after observing how science developed by the Westerners i.e guns helped them expel Moors from Spain and conquer the New World with ease.

The Mongols were called 'Mughals' in Farsi,the Mughal dynasty ruled much of India for 200 years from Delhi.Mongols generally are slant eyed or cat eyed and look like present day East Asians.They are said to belong to the Mongoloid race.The Urdu word 'Khaandaan' can be translated as respectable householder dynasty of Khans.Yet they did belong to the famous 'Khan' family of pagan Mongoloid Changeez Khan who conquered much of the world.

Yet many Khan family members of India hardly have any slant eyes.The fellow Najjam/Nizzam/Najjamuddin/Nizzamuddin who hit me hard at my ribs causing immense pain to me in the low class locality of my childhood also had slant eyes and was of yellow/red complexion but his eyes were not that much slant.Shows that Muslims also did not that eagerly practice eugenics.

But then might be they too would have thought that just like their fine breed Arabian and Persian horses gave them repeated victories over Hindus,human beings of fine breeds will give them victories over their rivals.The Afghans/Pathans who formed one of the two principal lineages that formed the foot soldiers of the Mughals are known to be stout compared with mainstream sub-continentals due to their natural climate.Also native debators are said to have been no match for the Persian debators in Hindu-Muslim debates.So a case can indeed be made that they practiced eugenics.

And you perhaps did not visit the sub-continent too often.Most Hinduwomen are pitch black,not of brown complexion.Cross-breeds of full white Europeans and pitch black natives of the sub-continent often look awful not even like zebras whose stripes are neatly fashioned(a forummer with the nick named Massive Zebra is someone whom I remember in this forum).

If special status could be granted to many states in India based on backwardness, then it can also be granted to remnant A. P which was deliberately rendered backward due to malicious policy of divide and rule.After division,percapita income of Telangana is Rs 20,000 /-more than that of remnant A.P.

Well per details given at infinityfoundation,according to Muslim travellers and historians of India,or atleast according to one documentor of Hindu society before Islam arrived,Hindu debtors were quite honest and repaid back their debts to their debtors.So muslim travellers considered it an objectively moral duty or value to pay off one's debts.

Some also observed that in one particular area,both the nobles and the commoners ate the same kind of finest food.Perhaps they believed in the religious/political/secular text of Neeti Saaram or essense of honesty that one should not hold people in debt traps forever.

Now when Europeans like Jim Corbett arrived in British India,he saw that illiterate bonded labourers like Budhia were being exploited for generations and generations in the guise of bonded labour with them not knowing what exponential component interest is being charged for the loans taken by their ancestors.He called the money-lender,threatened him and paid the due amount and freed Budhia.This story is in the syllabus of my 7th standard English non-detail text.Obviously paying the due amount is still considered an objectively moral value and duty even by the enlightened British.

Now as far as I am concerned,it is objectively immoral to enslave those peasants/their family members when they are not in a condition to pay off debts which will result in a debt trap.They can pay off at a later date when they are well-off.What do your objective moral values and duties tell you regarding this aspect of day-to-day life?

If special status could be granted to many states in India based on backwardness, then it can also be granted to remnant A. P which was deliberately rendered backward due to malicious policy of divide and rule.After division,percapita income of Telangana is Rs 20,000 /-more than that of remnant A.P.

Well per details given at infinityfoundation,according to Muslim travellers and historians of India,or atleast according to one documentor of Hindu society before Islam arrived,Hindu debtors were quite honest and repaid back their debts to their debtors.So muslim travellers considered it an objectively moral duty or value to pay off one's debts.

Some also observed that in one particular area,both the nobles and the commoners ate the same kind of finest food.Perhaps they believed in the religious/political/secular text of Neeti Saaram or essense of honesty that one should not hold people in debt traps forever.

Now when Europeans like Jim Corbett arrived in British India,he saw that illiterate bonded labourers like Budhia were being exploited for generations and generations in the guise of bonded labour with them not knowing what exponential component interest is being charged for the loans taken by their ancestors.He called the money-lender,threatened him and paid the due amount and freed Budhia.This story is in the syllabus of my 7th standard English non-detail text.Obviously paying the due amount is still considered an objectively moral value and duty even by the enlightened British.

Now as far as I am concerned,it is objectively immoral to enslave those peasants/their family members when they are not in a condition to pay off debts which will result in a debt trap.They can pay off at a later date when they are well-off.What do your objective moral values and duties tell you regarding this aspect of day-to-day life?

Hmm, this is a profoundly complex question. The answer requires hours of deep contemplation, a fair degree of nuance and a lengthy essay replete with technical philosophical jargon. Try to follow.